Everything we eat and drink has a chemical reaction in our body; we just don’t think of this when we are consuming food. For many of us, food is just about pleasure and feelings and we overlook what certain foods are doing to our body.
The reason that Cohen’s Program works so well is because of the chemical reaction it causes in our body. That is, it stabilises our blood sugar level and maximises and balances certain hormones.
The 3 hormones which are targeted on the Program are:
-
Insulin
- Human Growth Hormone
- Serotonin
We believe that once you have an understanding of what insulin is and what it does in your body you will look at our Program (and the way you eat after the program) differently.
Let's now look at insulin.
The hormone insulin is made in the pancreas gland which is located just below/behind the stomach. Insulin is secreted into the blood stream by the gland in response to a rise in blood sugar (glucose). After circulating in the blood stream for only 6-10 minutes, the insulin binds with specific receptors on the cell membranes to transfer glucose from the blood stream inside the cells. The hormone insulin is extremely powerful and controls the processing of blood sugar.
Everything you eat and drink is absorbed from the small intestine and passes into the portal vein, which takes the nutrients from the meal straight into the liver. Fats are broken down into glycerol and fatty acids, while protein is broken down into amino acids, and all these travel to the liver for processing.
Carbohydrates are absorbed from the gut as simple sugars, which quickly become glucose. The more carbohydrate you eat, the more glucose will be produced and released into your bloodstream. Glucose is pure energy. Your body then has to decide how much of this glucose it will use for immediate energy needs, and how much glucose it will store for future energy needs. It is the powerful hormone insulin, which makes this decision and sends the glucose to the areas of your body that are most suitable and accessible.
After eating or drinking, as the blood glucose rise the pancreas pumps out insulin, which converts some of the blood glucose into a starch called glycogen, which is stored in the muscle and liver’s cells for future use. Once the glycogen stores are full, excess blood glucose will be converted by insulin into fat, which is called triglyceride. This triglyceride can be carried in your blood stream to the fatty tissues where it will be deposited as fat. This is why insulin is often referred to as the fat storage hormone.
The types of foods in your diet will have a big effect upon the amount of insulin that you have in your bloodstream. If you eat foods that are high in refined carbohydrates (ie white flour and sugar) the blood glucose will rise rapidly and cause a rapid increase in insulin levels. Meals containing mostly protein and fat but low in carbohydrates do not cause a large rise in blood glucose and therefore do not require much insulin to be processed. Protein foods require a little insulin where as fat requires virtually no insulin to process.
Carbohydrate foods have the biggest effect on our blood sugar levels and insulin. What many people do not realise is that carbohydrate foods include not only bread, pasta and rice, but vegetables and fruits. Even vegetables such as lettuce and mushrooms act like carbohydrates. Unlike other diets which put vegetables such as these on a ‘free’ list to allow you to eat unlimited amounts of them, our Program does not because they are not really ‘free’ in terms of what they cost us (ie too many vegetables and fruit causes the blood sugar to rise sufficiently to trigger excessive amounts of insulin which prompts your body to store fat). This is the reason we also only eat certain types of vegetables.
The sweeter and starchy vegetables such as carrots, corn and potato are will cause our blood sugar to rise substantially more than celery, spinach, cauliflower and mushrooms. This is also why the weight and amount of your food are so critical to your success. Dr Cohen examines your blood chemistry and can determine exactly what you need to eat to keep your blood sugars and insulin balanced and normal.
WHAT IS INSULIN RESISTANCE?
You may have heard the term Insulin Resistance (IR) or you may even have it. This term means that the body is resistant to the effects of the hormone insulin, so that your body has lost the ability to respond to the insulin. Your body’s cells resist the insulin so that the pancreas has to secrete more insulin to make up for this lack of sensitivity. In those with insulin resistance the insulin is not able to transfer glucose from the blood into cells very efficiently. This causes the blood glucose levels to rise.
IR is due to the combination of genetics, excess carbohydrate intake and lack of exercise. Weight excess can cause IR, and resistance to the action of insulin is a characteristic feature of obesity.
The ingestion of too much carbohydrate triggers the release of high levels of insulin but the cells in your body cannot respond to this quantity of insulin. Because the insulin does not work efficiently, the pancreas responds by pumping out even more insulin to try to overcome this resistance. In insulin resistance the insulin becomes less and less effective at converting glucose into energy and more of this glucose is turned into fat, which means high levels of insulin and IR occur in the vast majority of overweight people.
In those with IR, although the insulin cannot get glucose into the cells efficiently it can still perform other functions such as converting carbs into fat and suppressing the burning of stored fat. This is a metabolic problem that makes you fatter and fatter and your body literally becomes what we term at Cohen’s ‘the Fat Factory’. When the body becomes the “Fat Factory, we are just making and storing fat, never burning it.
If this chemical imbalance is allowed to continue it can result in Diabetes. Diabetes occurs when cells are so resistant to insulin that the blood sugar continue to rise to abnormally high levels and remains continuously elevated.
- High levels of insulin are damaging to our health for several reasons:
- Blood fat called triglyceride becomes elevated
- Good cholesterol (HDL) levels go down
- Causes the liver to make more bad (LDL) cholesterol
Increases the development of fatty plaques in your arteries (atherosclerosis)
- Increases the retention of salt and water and stimulates the growth of smooth muscle cells in the arteries, which elevates blood pressure
- Possible affect of brain chemicals (neurotransmitters), causing mood disorders and insomnia
- Stimulates hunger, especially for high carbohydrate foods
Promotes the transfer of blood glucose into triglyceride fat and deposits fat in your body.
It also suppresses the levels of 2 important slimming hormones in your body:
• Glucagon – which promotes the burning of fat and sugar
• Growth Hormone – which is needed for building new muscle mass
On Dr Cohen’s Program:
• Your Insulin level is lower
• Your HGH and Serotonin levels are higher
• Your glucose level is balanced
• You aren’t hungry and don’t have cravings
• You have good energy
• Your fat provides most of your body’s energy
• You are losing weight as rapidly as your body will allow
This is why we tell our clients to follow their program 100%. Even small deviations interfere with the process and will cost you a week of weight loss and will trigger cravings and hunger. You are in control as long as you are following your program 100%, don’t kid yourself “a little bit” does make a difference.
